Whenever folks say radical Christianity is "a phase" of youth, I tell them they need to meet our 80-year-old nun or my friend Tony Campolo.

The best critique of what is wrong is the practice of something better. So let's stop complaining about the church we've experienced and work on becoming the church we dream of.

Too often we just do what makes sense to us and ask God to bless it.

Charity is merely returning what we have stolen.

Let's keep refusing to accept the world as it is and insisting on building the world we dream of. Don't let the haters have the last word.

To all my nonbelieving, sort-of-believing, and used-to-be-believing friends: I feel like I should begin with a confession. I am sorry that so often the biggest obstacle to God has been Christians.

And I think that's what our world is desperately in need of - lovers, people who are building deep, genuine relationships with fellow strugglers along the way, and who actually know the faces of the people behind the issues they are concerned about.